Lost Covenant: A Widdershins Adventure (16 page)

A small and winding depression, carved through the dirt and lined with occasional flattened stones, was probably a stream in wetter months. Now it was a makeshift hiding place, where Cyrille and Widdershins lay flat in the cold dirt, peering through barely visible flurries of light snow, watching to see who might come after them.

Or rather, Widdershins peered over the tiny lip, watching. Cyrille—whom she'd dragged to the ground and now lay atop of to make sure he didn't move, hand clasped over his mouth to make sure he didn't speak—probably couldn't see much of anything.

He also, despite a position that couldn't possibly have been comfortable for anything with an interior skeletal structure, wasn't putting up much of a struggle to
change
that position.

The brutish, oily leader of the Thousand Crows had appeared first, leaning through the window, brandishing a heavy flintlock. Moments after he'd pulled back inside—rather like a snail retracting into its shell, Widdershins had thought—he and Josce both appeared from around the side of the mill. Ivon now had his grotesque cleaver in one meaty fist, pistol in the other. The Carnot servant carried a double-barreled flintlock, both hammers cocked. Some distance behind them followed the third, carrying nothing in his hand except his
other
hand; he wrung them both together, whining nervously. (Shins couldn't begin to make out the words, but the tone said “nervous” and “whining,” thank you very much, and she'd dealt with enough of both in the Finders’ Guild to know.)

A brief but animated argument, or discussion, or arguscussion followed. Again, Widdershins couldn't hear much other than tone
from that distance, but judging by the broad gesticulations in their general direction, Ivon wanted the trio to spread out and scour the property for whomever might have been there, while Josce was more inclined toward returning to town.

The third man obviously favored Josce's preference, and eventually, perhaps because Ivon didn't care to do his searching alone, they turned and headed away from the mill, in the direction of Aubier proper.

Shins rose, taking a moment to brush the powdery soil from her gloves and her knees.

“Widdershins,” Cyrille began hesitantly, also standing, “I'm—”

“I
did
say you could apologize after the running,” she admitted, “but I have to tell you, if you do, I'm very seriously inclined to break your nose. This isn't a game, Cyrille, and your birthright won't protect you! You mess up doing what I do, you get hurt, or you get dead! Or hurt,
then
dead. And it's hard to apologize when you're dead, yes? At least, that's the rumor.

“So don't apologize. Just
stop messing up
!”

“I understand,” he said softly, scuffing the toe of one boot in the dirt.

“Good. Now, they're far enough along not to spot us easily. Let's move before we lose him entirely.”

“Him,” as Widdershins explained—quietly but impatiently, the third or fourth time Cyrille asked—was the third and currently unknown member of the trio. Much as she wanted to know where the Crows were holed up, following Ivon into their territory—especially given that she didn't yet have a solid grasp on how skilled the man actually might be—was a risk she preferred not to take with the youngest Delacroix son in tow. Josce was too good at spotting tails, and besides, they already knew whom
he
worked for. But the last? Widdershins very much wanted to learn who he represented, and while he nervously checked behind himself on a regular basis, he clearly lacked the knowledge and experience of the other two.

Indeed, Widdershins swiftly grew certain that Cyrille could have followed the man, utterly undetected, without her help at all. When she commented as much, the boy's face beamed so proudly that she decided not to tell him it hadn't really been meant as a compliment.

As they drew deeper into Aubier and the streets grew more crowded, Widdershins began to get nervous. Not that they might lose their quarry, no; that still proved simple enough, and her skills were more than sufficient to prevent them from being detected, even without Olgun's assistance. No, she worried that someone
else
—one of the Thousand Crows, or perhaps a Delacroix servant—might recognize either her or her companion.

“Trade cloaks with me,” she said abruptly.

“Um…” Cyrille glanced at her shabby gray garment, then at his own fine cloak of blues, deepest navy outside, sky-bright within. “What?”

“Trade!” she insisted. It wasn't
much
of a disguise, certainly, but if anyone was looking for her—or him—by description alone, their eyes might just flit on over without stopping.

Of course, her cloak only came down to his knees, while his hung nearly to her heels, but one couldn't have everything.

The man they were following finally turned down one last street and stepped inside a large wooden structure, old but still in good repair and freshly whitewashed. A placard above the door identified the place, both in art and in letters, as the Second Home. It was, as Cyrille explained even though Shins already knew, one of the many hostels catering to visitors staying in Aubier long-term.

After which, he asked, or began to, “Was this one of the handful of—”

“Two hundred ninety-one,” Widdershins interrupted.

Twelve
, Olgun corrected her.

“—places you checked earlier?” Cyrille concluded.

“Yes,” the young woman admitted. “But I was looking for the
Crows, specifically. And it's not as though I saw or spoke to everyone here.”

“Just asking. No need to be defensive.”

“I'm not defensive!
You're
defensive!”

“Um…”

“You're also,” she added more calmly, “going to wait out here while I poke around.”

If Cyrille had huffed up any further, Shins was convinced he'd actually have burst a button. “Not a chance! I—”

“Of the two of us, Cyrille, who's the actual outsider?”

“You, but—”

“Of the two of us, who's the one who won't draw inordinate amounts of attention if a server or some other citizen inside happens to be familiar with the local nobility?”

“You,” he repeated, growing sullen.

“Of the two of us, who's actually had some fair idea so far of what the figs she was doing?”

Cyrille merely glared this time, rather than answer. Just as well, as Widdershins might not have heard him over the sudden sound, or rather sound-like sensation, of Olgun's hysterical laughter.

“Oh, I have, too!” she murmured. “Most of the time, anyway. Shut up. I could just rent a room and leave you here, you know. You wouldn't be able to leave. You have no hands. I…No, you
couldn't
just walk through the walls! They…Because it's not fair, that's why! Didn't I say shut up?”

She turned her attention back to her flesh-and-blood companion, who was looking at her funny. “Cyrille, I'm not just trying to keep you out of the way. We have no idea who that man is, or why he came here. He
probably
works for someone inside, but if he's just ducking in for a few minutes, for whatever reason, I need someone on the street to see it. Someone who can follow him to wherever he's
really
going? It's important.”

The boy's face twisted in blatant disbelief, but he nodded. “All right. Whatever you need.”

“Thank you.” She started to move away.

“Shins? What's the signal if you need help?”

“Screaming,” she said over her shoulder. “Lots of screaming. Probably breaking things. Sometimes, there's fire.”

With that, she slipped into the small knot of people gathered aimlessly before the Second Home and vanished through the open doorway.

Cyrille watched until she was gone, and for several minutes more. People came and went, the throng in the street shifted and flowed, the wind grew chill, and the snow began drifting downward in flurries large enough to stick. Only a few of Aubier's citizens or visitors seemed inclined to let the weather drive them indoors; the rest merely pulled up hoods or tightened collars, and otherwise went about their conversations.

The young Delacroix chose the latter, and then nearly lost himself in the scents of Widdershins's hood. The dirt and perspiration of a garment not washed as frequently as he himself was accustomed to, yes—but also the soft tang of her hair. He swore he could feel her breath on his cheek, and his fingers twitched of their own accord, seeking the touch of her skin.

He would have berated himself, severely, for becoming so distracted, for failing to keep up the careful watch that was the job she'd asked of him, had he been given the time to think of it. As it was, he was still all but blind to the world, reveling in imagined intimacies, when a pair of hands closed on his shoulders from behind and yanked him back off the street.

Shins went straight for the hearth, and the fire roaring within, pulling up a chair and joining several others who sat with hands outstretched, warming themselves. A few surreptitious glances as she crossed the room were enough to offer the gist of the place, and the fireplace itself provided an excuse to sit, study, and scheme.

The common room of the Second Home was not so much tavernlike, as with the case in most hostels with which she was familiar, as it was a communal social area. Multiple tables were set up for games, including cards, dice, and a complex board game of unique tokens and tactical maneuvers representing two of the pre-Galicien tribal states attempting to “civilize” one another. The normal tavernish odors were at least partly cloaked by some combination of floral herbs thrown on the fire, though where they'd gotten such things at this time of year was a mystery unto itself.

Food and drink were available, of course, but they were selected from a menu and provided by servers who came and went from a kitchen off to one side. The concept of the restaurant was only a few generations old in Davillon; she was a bit surprised to see that it'd taken root in a community as small as Aubier. Then again, the place
did
have to cater to a wide variety of travelers and…

And she was getting way,
way
off track. “Quit distracting me!” she hissed at Olgun, then ignored his emotional double take in response. All this was well and good, but it wasn't getting her any closer to finding the man she'd followed—or, for that matter, identifying anyone, Crow or otherwise, who might actually be here looking for
her
.

“Shouldn't be too hard getting upstairs,” she noted to her incorporeal companion. Indeed, people were tromping up and down the wide, wooden steps all the time, heading to or departing from the various rented chambers. “Problem is, then what? Going to attract
a
little
attention if we just start knocking on random doors, yes? If we—”

The serving girl didn't actually look all
that
much like Robin. This young woman was taller, not quite as thin. Her hair was darker, longer, curlier; her carriage somehow, in a paradox Widdershins couldn't begin to resolve, both more graceful and clumsier all at once. Put the two of them in a room together and nobody, from close friends to utter strangers, would ever mistake one for the other.

Still, the general waifish resemblance was just enough to send an icicle of homesickness through Widdershins's heart, hotly pursued by an angry, despairing clench in her gut. She only realized she was staring when the serving girl tossed her a nervous glance and then skittishly headed for the kitchen, just shy of a run.